Patna zoo, parks to reopen from Tuesday

PATNA: The Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park, commonly known as Patna zoo, and all other big parks in the city will reopen on Tuesday for visitors from 5.30am and 10.30am with restrictions in place for preventing Covid-19 spread. This arrangement will continue till further orders. Only those parks with proper security and other arrangements, like Rajdhani Vatika (Eco Park), Veer Kunwar Singh Park and S K Puri Children’s Park, will open.
The zoo will be open only six days a week (except Mondays), said principal secretary of department of environment, forest and climate change, Dipak Kumar Singh, on Monday. He said boating, golf cart riding, toy train, theatre hall (Interpretation Centre), Children’s Park and zoological areas would remain closed till further orders.
“There are two reasons behind the reduced timing — people generally avoid outings during summer and no visitor is allowed in the zoological section and other facilities for the time being. So, limited number of people would come. We would see the response of people for a week and then decide about the reopening of other facilities,” Dipak said and added: “As per the Centre’s guidelines related to Covid-19 pandemic, people above 65 and below 10 years and pregnant women should avoid coming to the zoo.”
The zoo authorities said limited number of people would be allowed. Their movement would be closely monitored through the CCTV cameras and by security personnel.
Zoo director Amit Kumar said visitors would be allowed only in botanical areas, which is almost 70 acre of the premises. “Barricading has been done at several points to stop people from entering the zoological areas. Guards are also deputed. Markings have been made for people to follow the botanical areas only,” he said.
An advisory has also been issued for the visitors, like wearing face mask, which they can purchase from the ticket counters also. Thermal screening of all visitors will be done at the entry point. People suffering from fever, cough and cold will not be allowed inside the zoo. The visitors have to carry their own hand sanitizer and water bottles as a precautionary measure. Spitting is strictly prohibited. Social distancing norm has to be maintained at water points and washrooms.